5/31/2017

In an effort to avoid the hot takes of the day (Covfefe, anyone?), I scanned some smaller local newspapers to see what’s happening around the country in the less cosmopolitan areas. And this caught my eye – a former candidate for Congress in the state of California, has moved to Texas and wants to help other Californians do the same:

Chabot, who now lives in Texas, recently founded Conservative Move, which seeks to relocate conservative-minded families to parts of the country that are more receptive to their thinking – for now, Collin County, Texas with more counties promised as operations expand.

“We wanted a better life for our four young children and we found it in Texas,” Chabot said on Conservative Move’s website.

“Our only regret was not doing it sooner. This ‘idea’ was so simple – we just wanted to help families make the move like we did.”

Now, while this might seem like a great idea for Californians at the end of their right-leaning-rope living in the deepest of blue states, I’m not so sure Texans are going to feel great about the project. One thing I hear from locals when traveling out of state, as well as speaking to other frequent travelers, is that the locals in states that Californians relocate to are often dismayed to find that their new neighbors have brought all of their “Californian pathologies” with them, thus over time, the new home state ends up resembling the Golden State far more than the natives would like.

Chabot explains his family’s decision to move out of California:

In announcing his move, Chabot, who also lost to Aguilar in 2014, said that after the November election, he and wife Brenda “took a long hard look at our state of California and agreed it was time to move to ‘America,’ to find a region of our nation that embraces the values and morals we cherish.”

California, Chabot said, was “overrun by illegals, drug addicts and violent criminals under the umbrella of a radical liberal ideology that has destroyed the state.”

With the slogan “Helping Families Move Right,” Conservative Move offers to connect families with a real estate agent to sell their home and “introduce you to our team’s real estate agent to find your new dream home in North Texas.”

Now, I don’t know whether this is going to motivate Conservatives to pull up roots and head south, but certainly Chabot’s description of the state is well founded. Also, there is the matter of Democrats (the progressive kind) having a stranglehold on the state, with no end in sight. But obviously pulling up stakes and relocating is a decision unique to each individual’s personal circumstances, and is often much easier said than done.

It wasn’t just raucous protesters in the Texas House gallery making the news yesterday. After quelling the protesters, who chanted and blew whistles in disapproval of Senate Bill 4 (addressing sanctuary cities), which compels officials to enforce federal immigration laws and impose penalties on sanctuary cities, a scuffle unfolded on the floor.

Apparently, when Texas Republican Rep. Matt Rinaldi called ICE to report the protesters in the gallery wearing signs that claimed illegal status, and let Democrats on the floor know, it didn’t go over too well. Especially with Hispanic lawmakers:

Rinaldi and his Democratic colleagues traded accusations of death threats on the last day of the 85th Legislature’s regular session after he said he called federal immigration authorities on people in the gallery protesting the state’s new “sanctuary cities” law. Rinaldi said state Rep. Poncho Nevárez, D-Eagle Pass, “threatened my life on the House floor,” in a statement Monday. Nevárez said Rinaldi was lying, and state Rep. Justin Rodriguez, D-San Antonio, said Rinaldi had threatened to “put a bullet in one of my colleagues’ heads.”

The normally ceremonial last day of the legislative session briefly descended into chaos on Monday, as proceedings in the House were disrupted by large protests and at least one Republican lawmaker called immigration authorities on the protesters.

State Rep. Matt Rinaldi, R-Irving, said he called U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement while hundreds of people dressed in red T-shirts unfurled banners and chanted in opposition to the state’s new sanctuary cities law. His action enraged Hispanic legislators nearby, leading to a tussle in which each side accused the other of threats and violence.

Today, Representative Poncho Nevarez threatened my life on the House floor after I called ICE on several illegal immigrants who held signs in the gallery which said “I am illegal and here to stay.” Several Democrats encouraged the protestors to disobey law enforcement. When I told the Democrats I called ICE, Representative Ramon Romero physically assaulted me, and other Democrats were held back by colleagues. During that time Poncho told me that he would “get me on the way to my car.” He later approached me and reiterated that “I had to leave at some point, and he would get me.” I made it clear that if he attempted to, in his words, “get me,” I would shoot him in self defense. I am currently under DPS protection. Several of my colleagues heard the threats made and witnessed Ramon assaulting me.

The true intentions of SB4 came to light today on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives. Matt Rinaldi looked into a House gallery full of Americans exercising their first amendment rights against SB4 — Americans of all ages and all ethnicities — and he only saw “illegals.”

As Reps. Cesar Blanco, Phil Cortez, and myself celebrated the enthusiasm for civic engagement being shown, Rep. Rinaldi felt the need to break up our appreciation by telling us he had called ICE to deport the protestors in the gallery. Our reactions were honest. Our reactions were of disgust. His use of profanity to emphasize his point that all he saw was a bunch of “illegals” that deserve to be deported had the intention of anger.

Let me be clear, this was a personal attack on me as a son of Mexican immigrants. I voiced my feelings, as did Reps. Blanco and Cortez, and Rep. Rinaldi replied by saying the people in the gallery did not love this country. Members of his own party came to pull him away, making his accusation of being assaulted completely baseless. Countless members witnessed “the scuffle,” and they will all tell you no assault occurred.

“I did shove him around a little bit, I pushed him, because he needed to get out of there,” Nevarez said.

“I got in his face and I put my hands on the guy,” he also said. “In another exchange, I said, ‘we need to take this outside because it shouldn’t get resolved here in front of all these people.’”

Nevarez justified his actions thusly:

“He’s a racist. He’s a bad person,” Nevarez asserted. “We’re not going to allow people like that to get away with saying comments like that because they think nothing’s gonna happen to ’em.”

(Video of Nevarez’s statement at the link.) Seriously??

As of today, there has not been a report of any charges filed in the matter.

[Oh, FFS! I guess assault is now considered okay, if it’s your side that felt provoked. Like, Oh, we didn’t have a choice, we had to shove, hit, grab by the neck, whatever. WE HAD NO CHOICE! Whether it’s an annoying reporter provoking a politician, or a politician provoking a colleagues on the other side of the aisle, it’s unacceptable to react in this manner. Can we just dispense with making excuses for any of them: Gianforte’s assault on Ben Jacobs was simply how Montanans settle things. Nevarez shoving Rinaldi is just how Texans (or Hispanic males) settle things. We should be irate as hell that our elected officials in the seats of power believe the rules don’t apply to them, and condeming their noxious weasel-like rationalizations. As if those should smooth over very bad decision making. No one looks noble, just pathetic. And for Godsake, let’s stop assessing whether the story fits our particular point of political view before condemning it. That sort of thinking only widens the Left/Right chasm, and further exacerbates an already contentious situation. Somebody must be the grown up. Yet, amusingly, here I am condemning the laying on of hands by anyone without a personal invitation, and CNN is correcting me: What happened on the Texas House floor yesterday was simply “democracy in action”. Got it.]

Here is a video of yesterday’s “democracy in action”:

Here are photos of Rinaldi and Nevarez and Romero to help identify them in the video:

(Poncho Nevarez)

(Matt Rinaldi)

(Ramon Romero Jr.)

*In the Dallas Morning News, there is an interesting op-ed about the scuffle and the politics involved. Writer Mark Davis observes:

Rinaldi says Rep. Ramon Romero of Fort Worth “physically assaulted” him, which Romero denies, admitting only to “honest” reactions filled with “disgust.” He is entitled to describe his own feelings however he wishes.

But in his own post, he is not permitted to falsely characterize the views of others. His claim that Rinaldi took in the spectacle of chaos in the gallery and “saw only illegals” is part of the campaign of lies so often deployed against conservatives amid policy differences on immigration.

Seeking to concoct a personal affront, Romero called this “a personal attack on me as a son of Mexican immigrants.” It was, of course, nothing of the kind. Rinaldi’s focus, which is the same as mine and the same as President Donald Trump’s, is on immigrants who are breaking our laws.
But since admitting to siding with lawbreakers can be a tricky pursuit, the familiar liberal attack is to demonize opponents with the baseless suggestion that they are motivated by racism. This shameful charge is leveled on TV news segments, in slanderous op-eds, and in various legislative chambers.

…

A mightily offended chorus of Hispanic lawmakers gathered quickly to publicly malign Rinaldi’s well-earned good name. Their hate speech toward him is the product of one thing: he dares to fight for strong immigration laws.

In the aftermath of Friday’s horrific knife attack on a Portland train that left two courageous men dead and a third hospitalized after heroically attempting to defend two young women from a deranged individual, Portland mayor Ted Wheeler is requesting the federal government shut down the scheduled “Trump Free Speech Rally,” or in the words of Mayor Wheeler, the “alt-right rally,” in his city on June 4. There is also another not-yet-approved “March Against Sharia” rally on June 10, for which the mayor also wants permits denied. From Mayor Wheeler’s Facebook page:

1) I have reached out to all of the victims and their families, including the two women who were terrorized and subjected to such hatred and bigotry. I have offered my unconditional assistance and support, day or night.

2) I have confirmed that the City of Portland has NOT and will not issue any permits for the alt right events scheduled on June 4th or June 10th. The Federal government controls permitting for Shrunk Plaza, and it is my understanding that they have issued a permit for the event on June 4th.

3) I am calling on the federal government to IMMEDIATELY REVOKE the permit(s) they have issued for the June 4th event and to not issue a permit for June 10th. Our City is in mourning, our community’s anger is real, and the timing and subject of these events can only exacerbate an already difficult situation.

4) I am appealing to the organizers of the alt-right demonstrations to CANCEL the events they have scheduled on June 4th and June 10th. I urge them to ask their supporters to stay away from Portland. There is never a place for bigotry or hatred in our community, and especially not now.

5) I am calling on every elected leader in Oregon, every legal agency, every level of law enforcement to stand with me in preventing another tragedy.

Mayor Wheeler is openly advocating that protected speech by Americans be quashed because he disagrees with what they believe. This same mayor seeks to use the power of the federal government to deny a group their right to exercise speech, hateful or not. Shame on an elected official believing this is justified. And shame on the mayor of Portland for willfully ignoring the Oregon State Constitution:

Freedom of speech and press. No law shall be passed restraining the free expression of opinion, or restricting the right to speak, write, or print freely on any subject whatever; but every person shall be responsible for the abuse of this right.

But mostly, shame on the residents of Portland for not calling out their mayor on such a significant misstep. For truly, if the mayor is that concerned about a rally supporting the president increasing tensions in an already tense situation, why not just provide a greater presence of law enforcement and more security? One might be inclined to ask, exactly why has it become increasingly difficult for law enforcement to effectively do their jobs when faced with protests these days?

The Washington Post, in a report incredibly and ironically titled,”Portland mayor asks feds to bar free-speech and anti-sharia rallies after stabbings,” notes that the Oregon ACLU opposes the mayor’s request:

The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon criticized the mayor’s attempts to shut down both rallies, saying the government can’t revoke or deny a permit based on the demonstrators’ views.

“It may be tempting to shut down speech we disagree with,” the ACLU tweeted, “but once we allow the government to decide what we can say, see, or hear, or who we can gather with, history shows us that the most marginalized will be disproportionately censored and punished for unpopular speech.”

“If we allow the government to shut down speech for some, we all will pay the price down the line,” the organization added.

According to the Washington Post’s go-to guy for clarification, Tom Hastings, “a longtime activist and professor in the Portland State University conflict resolution program,”:

[T]he mayor was on solid footing. The looming threat of violence at the rallies justified a shutdown while the city worked out a long-term solution, he said.

“I know these lines are perceived as pretty fuzzy when we’re dealing with constitutional First Amendment rights,” Hastings told The Washington Post. “But there’s no long fuse anymore. Everybody’s fuse seems to be quite short.”

I respect Greg Abbott, and set about reading the story to see if he had actually done what CBS News accused him of.

He did not.

Here is their own account:

Two days after a GOP House candidate from Montana was charged with assaulting a journalist, Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, joked about shooting reporters, according to the Texas Tribune.

The comment followed Abbott’s Friday signing of a bill that reduces the licensing fee to carry a handgun in the state of Texas from $70 to $40.

The governor then made his way upstairs to the shooting range for some target practice, and once he was finished, he held up his target sheet to show off his marksmanship, joking to the reporters and photographers present that, “I’m gonna carry this around in case I see any reporters.”

Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday visited a shooting range to sign a bill into law that significantly reduces the cost to get a license to carry a handgun, making Texas one of the states with the lowest fee in the nation.

“The right to bear arms is something that is synonymous with the state of Texas. We are proud to expand the right to bear arms by lowering the cost of what you have to pay in order to get a license to carry,” Abbott said. “Texans’ ability to bear arms is going to be even bolder today than it’s ever been before.”

The law, Senate Bill 16, reduces the first-time fee for a license to carry from $140 to $40 and the renewal fee from $70 to $40. A license to carry permit is valid in Texas for five years. The new fee will go into effect on Sept. 1.Texas governor jokes about shooting reporters after signing gun bill

Following the bill signing, Abbott tested out a few guns at an upstairs shooting range.

“I’m gonna carry this around in case I see any reporters,” Abbott joked while holding his bullet-riddled target sheet.

The story doesn’t say he joked about shooting reporters. The headline does.

The Texas Tribune version has the photo, which I will reproduce here as fair use to help criticize the headline of the story.

The caption is: “Gov. Abbott admires his practice target after signing Senate Bill 16, which reduces the first-time fee for a license to carry handguns, on May 26, 2017.” And indeed, his markmanship looks pretty good.

You can easily see what actually happened. He was joking that he wants to have the evidence of his excellent marksmanship directly on hand if he runs into reporters. So he can boast about it.

The bit about shooting reporters was made up by the Texas Tribune headline writer — and all of Big Media seems to have run with it.

This is a great example of why people despise Big Media.

I don’t think joking about violence against reporters is funny. But Greg Abbott didn’t do that. Stop saying he did.

5/27/2017

I wanted to finish up my three-part review of Shattered by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, the book that chronicled the collapse of the campaign of the Past, Present, and Future Inevitable Next President of the United States, First Lady/Senator/Secretary Hillary! Rodham Clinton, Her Royal Clintonic Majesty. The book has been sitting on my table for a month now, and I plan to send it off to my dad as a Father’s Day present. Part I of my review is located here and Part II can be found here. In those two parts I recounted many of the personalities involved in the campaign, as well as the inside info the authors provide on some of the pivotal moments in the run-up to the 2016 elections. What is left to report are some interesting anecdotes that did not make it into the first two parts, so here they are:

1) The authors mention that the campaign’s chief strategist, Joel Benenson, had a $1 million win bonus written in to his contract. Presumably this is standard operating procedure in Washington and the other campaign flacks had similar bonus structures. This makes me even happier to see them lose.

2) I mentioned in Part I of the review that the First Creep, Bill Clinton, found himself continually flummoxed that what he and Clintonland always believed had been a successful eight year reign in the White House had somehow turned into a liability. On the primary campaign stump for his wife in South Carolina, Bubba got into it with a Black Lives Matters member who told him that his crime bill had been racist. Bubba left that encounter believing that he had deftly parried the attack and exposed the crybully as being shortsighted and obtuse, only to have the campaign team “[light] into him” and tell him that he’s pushing young blacks to the arms of Bernie Sanders.

3) Allegedly, Hillary hates Chris Van Hollen, a member of the House Democrat leadership team, who at the time was running for a Senate seat in Maryland. Van Hollen had been one of the first Democrats to jump off her bandwagon in 2008 in order to catch the Obama Express. At one point the authors quote Hillary as blurting out, “Who gives a fuck about Chris Van Hollen?” The White House and the Maryland Democrat Party try to grease the skids for Van Hollen to defeat his female African-American opponent in the primary race by not doing the traditional get-out-the-vote campaign in the black community. Hillary’s team cried foul, and after tense negotiations a bare modicum of the get-out-the-vote campaign was put in place, though Van Hollen won pretty handily anyway.

4) I mentioned in the past two posts that the authors are certainly politically-sympathetic to Hillary and the Democrats. It often allows them to overlook some ideas that might be obvious to the rest of us. For instance, the never once mention the scandal uncovered by the email leaks that Donna Brazile was feeding debate questions in advance to the Clinton campaign, yet they praise Hillary for delivering fully-conceived and detailed responses to debate questions. Later the authors tell us that “a question [debate prep head Ron] Klain asked behind closed doors about a possible no-fly zone over Syria was repeated almost verbatim by moderator Chris Wallace in the third [Presidential] debate,” yet the authors don’t stop to wonder if perhaps the Hillary campaign was still being fed questions.

5) A very telling anecdote here: Hillary in her acceptance speech at the convention wanted to put in a quote from the popular Broadway hit Hamilton, a musical that coastal progressive elites shell out $1000 to see. Hillary naturally had already seen it twice. Some alert staffers wondered if the reference will go over the heads of the vast majority of the public who are not able to jump on a plane and spend an expensive weekend in Manhattan purchasing scalped tickets to see that show, but Hillary overruled them and the reference stayed in. It serves as a great metaphor of what is wrong with today’s Democrat Party.

6) Ah, Chelsea. This is just perfect. The authors speak of a gathering of the Clinton brain trust with Chelsea and her husband in attendance. Without a trace of irony, they report the following: “As Chelsea nursed her infant son, Aidan, and asked her daughter , Charlotte, if she wanted auga — Clinton and her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, were raising their kids to be bilingual. . .” Can’t you just see Chelsea speaking a handful of Spanglish phrases to her daughter — “Do you want some agua?” “Come on honey, vamos.” — and pretending that they are raising her to be bilingual? But hey, maybe Elena, the Dominican nanny that they no doubt employ and pay under the table just like the other rich progressive parents in Manhattan, is carrying the load in young Charlotte’s linguistic upbringing.

7) Having suffered through financial problems in her 2008 campaign, Hillary was obsessed with fundraising. Immediately after the convention, at a time when she should have been out trying to connect with voters in Middle America, she instead embarked upon a series of fundraisers in Manhattan, Washington, Palm Beach, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Silicon Valley. At that point she had about 800 staffers on her payroll, as opposed to her opponent’s 130, and she really freaked out when the Republican nominee raised $80 million in July.

8) The relationship between Robby Mook and John Podesta never healed. They engaged in a nasty pissing match in front of the rest of the campaign staff at a retreat in upstate New York in June, and thereafter both men fought to freeze each other out of key decisions. That’s a preview of the kind of dysfunction that Hillary likely would have brought to her White House staff.

9) Regarding the “deplorable” remark, it was made at one of the first Hillary campaign events open to the media, and the authors claim that Hillary didn’t realize that the media was there. She was used to those types of events being closed, which makes you wonder what other sorts of things she said behind closed doors.

10) Be glad you are not this guy: “The most spirit-crushing job in modern political history — managing the Podesta email portfolio — fell on the shoulders of Glen Caplin. Every morning, for the full month before the election, 44-year-old former spokesman for Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, would put on his hipster-style black-framed glasses, roll out of bed, and come into the Brooklyn office knowing that he and his team of as many as a dozen staffers would spend the day reading hundreds or thousands of Podesta’s emails.” The part about the hipster-style glasses is perfect.

11) Huma Abedin “was such a powerful force within Clintonworld that few of her colleagues dared to cross her. But some of them had always viewed her as a major vulnerability — even a ‘national security threat’ because of her potential to prevent Hillary from winning the Presidency. [. . . ] Regardless of her level of culpability — and her defenders say she’s unfairly targeted because she’s so close to Hillary — Huma was a disaster waiting to happen.” She botches the Hillary collapse at the 9/11 memorial service because (allegedly) Hillary had been given the (alleged) pneumonia diagnosis a couple of days earlier but Huma had failed to alert anyone in the campaign and that’s why several hours went by without the campaign being able to explain Hillary’s collapse.

12) Despite what the media was confidently reporting, both campaigns knew in late October that the race was tightening. The authors report on a GOP operative “with ties to the campaign” saying on October 26: “If he keeps his fucking mouth shut for the next twelve days, there are a couple of states that are going to surprise you.” The Republican nominee’s campaign was tracking a surge in Michigan and Pennsylvania, but didn’t announce them because they didn’t trust their own data and thought the numbers might be overly optimistic. At the same time, HRC campaign knew those states (and North Carolina and Florida) were getting shaky.

13) Much has been written about Hillary’s decision to forego visiting Wisconsin (Mook wouldn’t even send campaign collateral to the local offices there), but she actually wanted to campaign heavily in Michigan in the waning days, but the Michigan staff bluntly informed her that her numbers improve in the state when the election is not on people’s radar. Besides, the campaign had already grandiosely announced that they would be targeting Arizona, and to have suddenly changed plans would have alerted the suck-up media to the idea that maybe her position wasn’t as strong as they had been led to believe.

14) For all the claims that James Comey’s “October surprise” announcement lost the election for Hillary, the authors remind us that it was a fund-raising boon for her as angry liberals sent in donations to combat what they saw has outside interference.

It’s been fun reliving this campaign, and I am hoping that we learn even more in the months and years to come. We cannot be rid of the corrupt, nasty, awful, brutish Clinton Empire soon enough. Good riddance to those people and all the empty works and all of their hollow promises.

In Portland last night, a man killed two individuals and wounded another when they attempted to stop him from harassing two women on a train as he yelled “…hate speech toward a variety of ethnicities and religions”:

Two men were killed in a stabbing on a MAX train Friday when they tried to intervene as another man yelled racial slurs at two young women who appeared to be Muslim, including one wearing a hijab, police said.

A third passenger who tried to help was also stabbed, but is expected to survive, said Portland police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson.

Officers arrested the suspect as he ran from the Hollywood transit station into the neighborhood near Providence Portland Medical Center in Northeast Portland, Simpson said. Police are still working to identify him and the three men stabbed.

The suspect was ranting about many things, using “hate speech or biased language,” and at one point focused on the young women, Simpson said.
…

The suspect then turned on the passengers who tried to help, Simpson said.

“In the midst of his ranting and raving, some people approached him and appeared to try to intervene with his behavior and some of the people that he was yelling at,” Simpson said. “They were attacked viciously.”

One good Samaritan died at the scene and another at the hospital, he said. The third victim was undergoing evaluation, but didn’t suffer life-threatening wounds, he said.

“[The suspect] said, ‘Get off the bus, and get out of the country because you don’t pay taxes here,’ [he said he] doesn’t like Muslims, they’re criminals,” Evelin Hernandez said.

Authorities arrested 35 year old Jeremy Joseph Christian and he was booked in the Multnomah County jail on two counts of aggravated murder and one count of attempted murder, as well as misdemeanor charges.

According to Oregon Live, Christian’s criminal record, which dates back to 2002, includes felony robbery, kidnapping and weapon convictions.

CNN notes: “Investigators haven’t been able to verify whether Christian was targeting the women with slurs because police haven’t found them.” Police are hoping they will come forward to ask them questions.

Also, the Portland Mercury is reporting that Christian is a known white-supremacist, and known to Portland authorities:

On April 29, Christian showed up to the right-wing “March for Free Speech” on 82nd Avenue in Montavilla with a baseball bat in an attempt to assault left-wing protesters. The bat was quickly confiscated by Portland police officers. He ranted how he was a nihilist. He’d soon yelled racial slurs (“fuck all you n*****s”) and gave the Nazi salute throughout the day. He yelled “Hail Vinland” throughout the day.

A few Portland police officers on April 29 appeared to be familiar with Christian, but not threatened by him. They claimed he had a head injury and was mentally ill.

At the link you can view photos of Christian giving the Nazi salute, and read his anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim Facebook posts, as well as his political comments.

Prayers for the families of the two men who heroically died trying to protect the young women. And a quick recovery for the third individual.

“An eyeball just fell down into my lap, and that is gross!” [laughter from the crowd]
– Dr. Uta Landy, Founder of the Consortium of Abortion Providers (CAPS), Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA)

“I might ask for a second set of forceps to hold the body at the cervix and pull off a leg or two, so it’s not PBA [partial-birth abortion].”
– Dr. Ann Schutt-Aine, Director of Abortion Services for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast

“I get a lot of oohs and ahhs from StemExpress. You know, they’re wanting livers…Last week I was in Sacramento, and she said, “I need four intact limbs.” And I said, you want what?”
– Dr. Leslie Drummond, abortionist at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte

Here’s the backstory about the video’s release:

The footage was released by Daleiden’s attorneys, former Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley and former Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Brentford J. Ferreira. The legal group, Steve Cooley and Associates (SCA), has created a media resource page where press can track progress of the case. The page includes additional video evidence of abortion industry brutality: http://stevecooley.com/media/

NRO, which is closely monitoring this, is reporting that something is amiss:

Judge William Orrick — the California district judge who granted NAF and Planned Parenthood’s request for a preliminary injunction to prevent the release of this video footage — had ordered the CMP’s lead investigator David Daleiden and his attorneys to appear at a June 14 hearing to consider holding them in contempt for releasing the footage yesterday morning.

According to the attorneys defending CMP — Steve Cooley and Brentford Ferreira — they had the ability to release the footage in conjunction with California’s prosecution of Daleiden and his colleague Sandra Merritt, both of whom are facing 14 felony charges in the state for recording “confidential communications.” More clarification from the attorneys’ PR representative to National Review yesterday:

[Calif.] Attorney General Xavier Becerra has entered this footage into the public record by filing a public criminal proceeding based on it. The preliminary injunction obtained by NAF in a federal civil suit cannot bind this State criminal proceeding. (In fact, the SF Superior Court is now releasing certified copies of the court filings to the public with the links to the videos.)

It remains unclear, then, how Orrick had the authority yesterday evening to order Cooley and Ferreira to take down the footage and threaten them with contempt charges.

National Review is seeking clarification about this from CMP’s lawyers.

On a side note:

The health care reform bill passed by the House of Representatives redirects more than 400 million dollars in taxpayer funding away from Planned Parenthood to comprehensive health care centers that outnumber the abortion business at least 20 to one, and it stops the Obamacare abortion expansion by preventing taxpayer funding of health care plans that cover abortion on-demand.

When these absurdities pop up, it reminds me yet again that there are none so closed-minded as those who loudly proclaim their open-minded progressivism while simultaneously dropping the authoritarian hammer on everyday Americans.

Although the business had been operational for several months, and become increasingly popular, the hoopla began when the Williamette Week recently published an article about owners Kali Wilgus and Liz “LC” Connelly wherein they described how a trip to Mexico inspired them to learn how to replicate the unique and tasty tortillas of Puerto Nuevo when they got back home:

“In Puerto Nuevo, you can eat $5 lobster on the beach, which they give you with this bucket of tortillas,” Connelly says. “They are handmade flour tortillas that are stretchy and a little buttery, and best of all, unlimited.”

“I picked the brains of every tortilla lady there in the worst broken Spanish ever, and they showed me a little of what they did,” Connelly says. “They told us the basic ingredients, and we saw them moving and stretching the dough similar to how pizza makers do before rolling it out with rolling pins. They wouldn’t tell us too much about technique, but we were peeking into the windows of every kitchen, totally fascinated by how easy they made it look. We learned quickly it isn’t quite that easy.”

“On the drive back up to Oregon, we were still completely drooling over how good [the tortillas] were, and we decided we had to have something similar in Portland,” Connelly says. “The day after we returned, I hit the Mexican market and bought ingredients and started testing it out. Every day I started making tortillas before and after work, trying to figure out the process, timing, refrigeration and how all of that works.”

When they returned, they set up shop in a inside the Tight Tacos food cart in Portland. Tight Tacos describes itself as “an authentic street taquero”. The man behind Tight Tacos is Reggie Ballesteros, “a Hawaii transplant” who lived in California before landing in Oregon. Because “he couldn’t find tacos like the ones he ate growing up,” he opened Tight Tacos. And he apparently didn’t have a problem with two white girls using his food truck to make their popular breakfast burritos. (Q: Does this make Ballesteros an accomplice to two white girls’ cultural appropriation?)

“Because of Portland’s underlying racism, the people who rightly own these traditions and cultures that exist are already treated poorly,” an article in the Portland Mercury reads. “These appropriating businesses are erasing and exploiting their already marginalized identities for the purpose of profit and praise.”

Mic.com also offered commentary: “In less than six months, Wilgus and Connelly have managed to build a business. And depending on how you look at it, their methods are either genius or the latest example of white folks profiting off the labor of people of color.”

Interestingly, Mic.com writer Jamilah King, who is black (remember the rules), also said this in her report on Kooks:

The problem, of course, is that it’s unclear whether the Mexican women who handed over their recipes ever got anything in return. And now those same recipes are being sold as a delicacy in Portland.

That’s right, Jamilah. Because it’s unclear, you don’t know what transpired, and neither does anyone else. But sure, let’s infer, and assume the worst – privileged white girls stole from poor Mexican women. King, along with those whose attacks compelled the owners to shut down the business, have no clue what took place. Maybe the business partners paid a huge amount of money to the Mexican women, maybe they offered and were turned down. Maybe two American girls showing such a level of admiration, appreciation, interest and respect for the craft was enough for these tortilla makers. Why does King, or anyone else, assume that they would want compensation? Isn’t that projection of the worst kind? They’re a poor brown people in a poor land, pride in their workmanship isn’t enough, they want money!

Further, how aggravating that King chose not to focus on a tremendously noteworthy aspect of this report: Two gutsy young women built a successful business in a tough town for businesswomen in a mere six months! What a significant achievement. One that should have been cheered about by women of every color everywhere. Especially in Portland:

A new report on women owned businesses finds that Portland is one of the worst cities in the country. The data from America Express OPEN’s new report ranks Portland in the bottom ten cities in the country out of 100.

A commenter at The Mic left this fitting observation:

Sooooooo, let me get this straight. Are you all suggesting that Andy Ricker close Pok Pok? Should John Gorham close Toro Bravo? What about Expatriate? Should we force Kyle to stop serving Laotian tacos? Are you going to try and convince me you’ve never stood in line at Por Que No? Um, Bollywood Theater anyone? If learning how to make a food from another culture and selling it is now considered cultural appropriation, then why not take this issue up with the sucessful PDX businesses that have been doing this at a much larger scale for years, and stop harassing these two women struggling to start a small business.

According to Gustavo Arellano, author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, Bell watched long lines of customers at a Mexican restaurant called the Mitla Cafe, located across the street, which attracted a dedicated customer base for its hard-shelled tacos.[4][5] Bell began eating there regularly, attempting to reverse-engineer the recipe, and eventually won the confidence of the proprietors such that they allowed him to see how the tacos and other foods were prepared.[4][5] In late 1951 or early 1952, he took what he had learned and opened a new stand, this time selling tacos under the name of Taco-Tia.[4][5]

Over the next few years, Bell owned and operated a number of restaurants in southern California including four called El Taco. Bell sold the El Tacos to his partner and built the first Taco Bell in Downey in 1962.

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